Mozilla, reddit, lawmakers, even a Tea Party activist team to protect the Web.

You've heard of the bat signal—now get ready for the cat signal. A diverse crew of Internet businesses, advocacy groups, and lawmakers has banded together to create something called the Internet Defense League. The organization seeks to save the 'Net from bad laws like SOPA. And a cat signal—modeled after the signal used to rouse Batman each time Gotham City is threatened—is what the group will use to alert the world when it's protest time.

When the SOPA blackout day helped convince Congress that the Stop Online Piracy Act was a bad idea that would threaten Internet freedom, it showed how democracy can be used in the digital age to preserve the interests of people above the interests of corporations lining the pockets of politicians. But can the Internet rally to save itself each time it's threatened?

Enter the cat signal. A piece of code supporters of the Internet Defense League can embed in their websites, the presence of the cat signal will tell you another bad law threatening Internet freedom is making the rounds, and that it's time to call your local member of Congress. The cat signal is also being broadcast today on sites like Fight For the Future to announce the Internet Defense League's creation:

Yes, the signal was inspired by all those funny cat pictures on the likes of reddit and I Can Haz Cheezburger (two of the founding members of the Internet Defense League). But the League has prominent members who take Internet regulation very seriously.

"I recently gave a talk about being Batman or being Batwoman for your respective Gotham," said Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of reddit (a sister company of Ars). "This is like a call to arms for all the people who are creating something online. Whether they have a Twitter account with 20 followers, or they have a website with 35 million visitors, they all have a Gotham, so to speak, to protect. They all have a community they want to keep strong."

Internet Defense League founders said spotlights will be used to project actual cat signals into the sky today at live kick-off events in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. But the cat signal will more importantly be a digital signal that can be planted on websites to protest future attempts to censor the Internet.

"This digital signal is a critical component of how IDL works; it's code that lets any website or individual broadcast messages to their personal networks in an 'emergency alert system,'" the group said in its announcement. "When the Internet's in danger and we need millions of people to act, the League will ask its members to broadcast an action. (Say, a prominent message asking everyone to call their elected leaders). With the combined reach of our websites and social networks, we can be massively more effective than any one organization."

reddit is just one of many members in the Internet Defense League. It also includes a Tea Party activist, Mozilla, WordPress, Fark, Imgur, Tor, BoingBoing, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the European Parliament (which recently rejected the AntiCounterfeiting Trade Agreement). Congressmen including US Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), US Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), and US Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) are also on board.

Ohanian and several other members got the word out about the Internet Defense League this morning in a somewhat chaotic conference call with reporters. (Imagine lots of noisy people not on mute and everyone trying to speak over everyone else because there's no established order for reporters to ask questions.)

Moran said he wasn't necessarily expecting Internet freedom fighters to win the war against SOPA, but thought the battle was worth fighting anyway. The protest's ultimate success was gratifying, and helped preserve the abilities of businesses to innovate by using the Internet, he said.

"We have patted each other on the back and congratulated each other for that success, but I would say these battles, including the ones specifically related to SOPA and PIPA, are not behind us," Moran said. "And Congress has the habit of doing things without much forethought, without understanding these issues, particularly these tech issues, are ones many members of Congress don't have a complete understanding of. I think… individuals with expertise, knowledge, and a passion for the Internet have a great role to play in making certain the policies developed by Congress are ones that are advantageous to the Internet, and from my perspective advantageous to innovation."

Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Mark Surman said the scale of the Internet makes it possible—for the first time in human history—for anyone to publish anything, speak to anyone, or start a business without permission from someone else, and that right needs to be preserved. "We've made a huge bet on the Internet," Surman said, calling the Internet Defense League "a group of creative people who are excited about what the Internet can be as an open system."

Mark Meckler, co-founder and former national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, said the Internet Defense League's nonpartisan, people-centered approach is ideal for protecting the Internet from the tendency of politicians to over-regulate. "The Internet is not the problem. The Internet is the solution, so the Internet Defense League is here to help be the solution and prevent government from intruding on that which has the chance to save society," Meckler said.

The Internet Defense League has the code ready for download. But there are questions about just how it will work in practice, such as who decides when to broadcast the cat signal, and how the decision will be made. Group leaders didn't present a specific method, but said it will be modeled on the way things become memes or viral on the Internet.

Just how to measure "viralness" hasn't been determined. But group members will hold discussions amongst themselves, and pay attention to what's happening on the Web at large. For example, if posts about a bill on Internet issues make it to the front page of reddit ten times in a row, there's a good chance the Internet Defense League would take a look and see if it's worthy of action.

One threat being monitored by group members is the Senate version of CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). One reporter asked if net neutrality is on the agenda, but no specific commitments were made.

There's always the possibility that not every member of the group will agree that a certain threat is actually a threat. While the cat signal code can be automatically triggered, members can also choose to turn it on on a case-by-case basis, deciding for themselves which events are actually worth protesting.

So this proves my point. It is a news site. It isn't going to black out itself. So they are not going to follow this cat list or whatever next blackout day gona be. Blackout would just help Ars Technica, because more visitors come to the site to get information. I just think being a commercial news site is the major factor. I am not saying it is a bad thing. Ars followed principle and darkened their theme on that day. But they are not going to join this cat signal

Yep they are so diverse that they have to plagerize someone else's idea dna cannot come up w/ their own original thought.

It would have been more relevent had the "signal" been tied somehow to the original Blackout" Theme. Like - I don't know - another round of Websites Blacking Out their content again when the time comes ?

Sorry but a cat theme does not bring to mind anything relating to the Online Blackout from January.

xphantoman wrote:

sidran32 wrote:

So, you guys putting it on here?

Doubt it. Ars Technica is commercial site. It would lose some revenue. Got to ask if those advertiser Ok with it. They didn't follow internet black out day either.

LMAO - Google is corporate - they did it.

Wired is corporate - they did it.

Redditt (mentioned in this article) is corporate - they did it.

We can go down the whole damned list if you'd like - but you might want to research your opinion before you spray out nonsense next time.

Doubt it. Ars Technica is commercial site. It would lose some revenue. Got to ask if those advertiser Ok with it. They didn't follow internet black out day either.

What would blacking out a news site that would otherwise cover the issue do to help the cause? In case you didn't notice, they did follow (as in massively report on) the last round of blackouts albeit they didn't take themselves down.

Doubt it. Ars Technica is commercial site. It would lose some revenue. Got to ask if those advertiser Ok with it. They didn't follow internet black out day either.

Why would blacking out a site where its readers were very much aware of the issue? Ars instead used that to post a whole bunch more of knowledgeable articles that day.

That was much more effective than blacking out Ars - which they did anyway by making the dark theme the default.

So this proves my point. It is a news site. It isn't going to black out itself. So they are not going to follow this cat list or whatever next blackout day gona be. Blackout would actually help Ars Technica, because more visitors come to the site to get information. I just think being a commercial news site is the major factor.

No, the blackout wouldn't have helped Ars because it's core audience was already aware of SOPA. The point of the blackout was to make people who aren't techies, visiting sites like Ars every day, aware of SOPA and its implications. Were you actually on Ars that day? They dark-themed the site, changed their logo and had lots of SOPA-related coverage. It made sense for what Ars is.

Oh holy awesomeness Batman that Cat Signal actually looks like my cat whose name is Crash! My kitty will now be saving the Internets from crime!? Freedom impeding crimes!? That is freaking awesome! I bet that is what he is doing from the back of the closet all day long. I thought he might have a command center back there like in Cats Vs Dogs but you know I thought it was also the mad rantings of a nutty cat lady so holy awesomeness!

In all seriousness I think this is fantastic. Organizing is the first step to mobilizing.

I joined it a while back (but just announced it today - http://www.ktetch.co.uk/2012/07/politic ... eague.html)If anyone is interested as well, I'll be doing a panel at Dragoncon's EFForums track (http://efforums.net) called "Tactical SOPA Strike: How the Web Defended Itself Against Congress" with Holmes Wilson of the IDL (we'll also have Bruce Schneier and Randal Schwartz amongst other guests)

Internet Defense League founders said spotlights will be used to project actual cat signals into the sky today at live kick-off events in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

I'm confused about how this will work. Can an individual web-site just post the cat signal banner at their whim? Or, do they all embed the code, and some "master site" decides that an issue is serious enough, flips a switch, and suddenly all of those other sites start showing the cat signal due to the embedded code?

I just see this being totally not taken seriously if individual sites can (ab)use it to bitch about their own little issues.

"ZOMG! We need $1000 by Friday, or our internet hosting will be shut off, b/c I drank to much and pissed the server money away on booze! I'm flying the Cat Signal! I need help! GIVE ME MONEYZ!"

Edit: from what I gathered of the article, a "master site" decides to turn it on, but they will confer with the group as a whole whether an issue is serious enough. But, each participating site has the power to switch it off on their site if they don't think the issue is serious, as a way to sub-veto the signal. Correct?

I'm confused about how this will work. Can an individual web-site just post the cat signal banner at their whim? Or, do they all embed the code, and some "master site" decides that an issue is serious enough, flips a switch, and suddenly all of those other sites start showing the cat signal due to the embedded code?

Edit: from what I gathered of the article, a "master site" decides to turn it on, but they will confer with the group as a whole whether an issue is serious enough. But, each participating site has the power to switch it off on their site if they don't think the issue is serious, as a way to sub-veto the signal. Correct?

It's a master site. I have it on my site now, and there's two different codes I could use. One is the fully automatic code, the other is the per-campaign code (the current 'campaign' is the launch)

I'm not always at home, so I've gone for the automatic, but I won't hesitate to pull the code if it's a 'needless alert', and gets overused, or starts begging for money endlessly.

But hasn't actually made it available for download yet, as far as I can tell - unless signing up as a "developer" gives you access to it, which doesn't really count. Maybe that's why they're begging for donations, to make it usable?

I'm not against it, really, but think it a bit too cartoonish and "social" to be taken very seriously.

There's always pthe possibility that not every member of the group will agree that a certain threat is actually a threat.

...and there's always the possibility that a certain inordinately influential member of the group does not agree that a certain threat is actually a threat.

This is the bureaucratic price of organizing the "Internet Defense League" into a formal group. More than once, my opinion has departed in a big way from at least one member of the group (who shall remain unnamed). Maybe the "League" has possibilities. As for me, I'll wait for other methods. I'll keep reading the news...

But hasn't actually made it available for download yet, as far as I can tell - unless signing up as a "developer" gives you access to it, which doesn't really count. Maybe that's why they're begging for donations, to make it usable?

I'm not against it, really, but think it a bit too cartoonish and "social" to be taken very seriously.

*shrug* Again, I've had the code running today (link's above). I've gone for the top-banner, rather than the full page over-window.

So this proves my point. It is a news site. It isn't going to black out itself. So they are not going to follow this cat list or whatever next blackout day gona be. Blackout would just help Ars Technica, because more visitors come to the site to get information. I just think being a commercial news site is the major factor. I am not saying it is a bad thing. Ars followed principle and darkened their theme on that day. But they are not going to join this cat signal

The article didn't describe the cat signal as a blackout. It described it as a prominent message that could be automatically or manually triggered. I saw (and see on their site) no indication that it would be a blackout trigger, just a message and notification.

I think it very likely that this would be implemented on Ars in manual mode, and guys, you can take that as a formal vote in favor from this subscriber. Have Ars support the cat signal!

skicow wrote:

Quote:

And a cat signal—modeled after the signal used to rouse Batman each time Gotham City is threatened

And cue them being sued by the copyright owners of Batman in 3...2...1

Not enough similarity, they don't get control of all animal-themed spotlight shapes. Furthermore, even if it WERE close enough, this is a clearcut case of parody for the purpose of political commentary / criticism, and protected under the First Amendment.